Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Tagged with: Barack Obama

Did President Obama Just Realize Income Inequality Is a Problem →

Obviously, it is good that the President saw fit to address this very serious issue, but it is, frankly, outrageous that it took him almost five years into his presidency to address an issue that has been a growing problem in the US for decades and that was brought unmistakably to the fore by events that occurred in the last months of the 2008 campaign. While it is interesting that Obama quoted the Pope in his speech, it is almost as if Obama waited for some kind of political cover from the Pope before publicly addressing the issue of income inequality; either that or the depth and impact of the problem had not occurred to him until the Pope tweeted about it.

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What Do Obama's Bad Poll Numbers Mean?

During his last years in office, Obama will have several items on his agenda, but fixing the ACA should be at the top of that list. The administration has framed the ACA as the signature legislative accomplishment of Obama's presidency. Fixing the ACA will not be easy, as clearing up computer problems is only part of it. The broader problems of ensuring that people can keep their insurance policies and that younger healthier people sign up for health care through the program are more important. Making progress, or even to be seen as working hard to make progress can begin to turn Obama's poll numbers around. The state of the Republican's in congress makes this somewhat easier for Obama as his political opponents are discredited outside of their own partisan base.

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The Future of the Health Insurance Policy →

The bigger problem is that for the ACA to work financially, healthy people, particularly young childless healthy people, need to sign up for insurance. In any health insurance system, these young healthy people keep the cost down for others. While this may not seem fair, any American who has received health care through their employer has been part of a similar system. At a big company, the young healthy workers subsidize the older and less healthy workers. The difference is that people who get health insurance through their jobs are mandated to participate in the program. Of course, everybody is mandated to buy health insurance, but it will soon become clear that the enforcement of this mandate will not be strong.

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The Myth of the Republican Civil War

The primary reason for this is that there already has been a civil war in the Republican Party; and the far right won. The situation in the Republican Party today is very different than at various points in the 20th century when liberal or moderate Republicans fought with right wing for control of the party. Today, there is no battle between the moderate and far right wing of the Republican Party. That fight ended years ago with the moderates losing. Although there may be a small handful of centrist Republicans remaining in the party, they do not have a lot of power and move quickly to the right as they become national figures. The most recent obvious example of that was Mitt Romney who had governed Massachusetts as a moderate, but ran for president as a unapologetic conservative. Even people like Chris Christie who are said to represent the moderate wing of the party are, in many respects, conservatives who either have had to govern or who come from the northeast.

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Contempt for President Obama is Behind the Shutdown

The government shutdown is not driven by a Republican desire to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Nor is it about trying to reign in government spending or limit the national debt. It is, at its core, the latest act in an effort by the far right of the Republican Party to delegitimize the presidency of Barack Obama.

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The Republicans Finally Took Their Ball and Bat and Went Home →

Recent Republican actions have made it clear that too many in that party are unwilling to accept defeat and plan for the next fight. The Republican Party is like that annoying kid many of us knew growing up who would threaten to take his ball and bat home if he does not get to pitch and bat cleanup. For Republicans this is now a guiding principle of policy making not just the petulant and destructive behavior of a spoiled child.

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Red Baiting is the Last Refuge to which Joe Lhota Clings →

Lhota's argument that New York does not need a Stalinist mayor is probably true, but not exactly pertinent, and amounts to little more than name calling. However, if one is going to play the guilt by association game, it is considerably more relevant to raise the question of whether New Yorkers who came to this city from other parts of the US or the world to escape religious persecution, homophobia, racism or fanaticism needs a mayor who represents a party which continues to reflect those values-not 25 years ago, but today. It is hard to miss the irony that Lhota's campaign is shaping up to be framed on the one hand by an attempt to tar de Blasio for positions he took, which were good and defendable ones, a quarter century ago, and on the other hand by running from the extremist reputation of his own party.

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Syria and the Foreign Policy Echo Chamber →

If an app existed that could maximize the number and breadth of strong arguments against a policy decision as well as the potential damage that policy could cause while minimizing the possibility that the policy in question could accomplish anything, it would produce the administration's proposed strike against Syria.

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Is Hillary Clinton in a Weaker Position Now? →

Hillary Clinton has not yet announced whether or not she will be a candidate for president in 2016, and already there is a PAC aimed at thwarting her candidacy. The creatively named Stop Hillary PAC is committed to trying to destroy Clinton's aspirations by running negative ads and otherwise seeking to portray her in the worst possible light. Clinton remains the front-runner for her party's nomination, should she run, but it is possible that the right is making a mistake by attacking Clinton.

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Anthony Weiner Could Create Problems for Hillary Clinton Too →

Even if Weiner and Abedin had no connection to Clinton, it would be hard to watch Abedin's support for her husband and not think of Hillary Clinton's support for President Bill Clinton during the various sex related scandals during and before the Clinton presidency. Hillary Clinton has a long record of accomplishment since she and her husband left the White House. Should she run for president, that is the record she will want to highlight. Anything that brings attention away from that record and back to the worst periods of the Clinton presidency is bad for Hillary Clinton. That is precisely what this scandal is doing now.

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Anthony Weiner Is a Caricature of a Politician →

Weiner entered this race knowing there would be more revelations about his online conduct while simultaneously arguing that since he has reconciled with is wife, we the voters should forgive him too. The initial coverage of Weiner reflected this angle which, along with his name recognition, contributed to his impressive poll numbers. This was a mischaracterization of why Weiner's conduct is so troubling. This scandal was never primarily concerning Weiner's personal life and relationship with his wife. The real issues in the scandal are Weiner's serial dishonesty, unwillingness to take responsibility for his actions and extraordinary self-absorption. Again these are characteristics that are not exactly in short supply among politicians, but more extreme in the case of Weiner.

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The President and the Republicans →

The plight of the Republican Party during the years Obama has been in office has been damaged because every time they begin to make some traction against the President, some nut metaphorically runs into the center of the political dialog yells "We hate women!" several times and runs out again, changing the subject and the political dynamic. This time the nut was Rick Perry, but it has been Todd Akin, Rush Limbaugh and others in recent years. Sweeping anti-abortion legislation, of the sort proposed by Perry, may help with the Republican base and in solid red states and districts, but it damages the Republican Party nationally and with swing voters.

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President Obama is Soft on Our Civil Liberties →

President Obama has disappointed some progressives on issues including health care, banking and finance, and foreign policy. In these areas, however, there is room for debate, with some progressives believing Obama has abandoned his progressive principles too quickly, while others have argued that the president has had to act pragmatically; and that delivering something is better than producing nothing. Civil liberties, on the other hand, is one area where Obama has unambiguously failed his progressive supporters, and his country more generally.

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Does Anthony Weiner's Redemption Really Mean He Has to Be Mayor? →

Before Weiner won his seat in Congress he was also in the City Council, but during his time in that legislature he was more known for his ambition than for a progressive record or any real accomplishments. His time in Congress was defined more by his outspoken progressive views than for any particular legislative accomplishments. This, on its own, is not unusual. Many elected officials are ambitious, and there is a need for people who are strongly partisan in congress. However, they also do little to make Weiner the kind of person who is likely to be a good mayor. Since leaving the City Council, Weiner has not been involved in many local issues, other than taking the standard progressive positions. The one New York issue for which he is best known is his strong views against bike lanes. Cyclists are a contentious issue in New York, but Weiner's comment to the mayor, who for all his ample faults is a supporter of cyclists, that he wants to "tear out your f*cking bike lanes," does not seem to reflect a progressive approach to environmentalism or urbanism.

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The Lasting Impact of the IRS Scandal →

The IRS scandal that is still dogging the Obama administration may or may not do lasting damage to the president, however the impact of these events and decisions by part of the IRS will go beyond the political fortunes of a popular and surprisingly Teflon-seeming president. The IRS has never been the most beloved of government organizations. For most Americans, all they want from the IRS is to be left alone. Paying income tax is not great fun even for those who understand that a modern state needs to generate revenue from somewhere. Being investigated or audited by the IRS is, in the best case scenario, a minor inconvenience, but frequently can cost a great deal of money and time. In many cases, of course, the person being investigated has either made serious mistakes in their taxes or even violated the tax code, but the IRS also makes mistakes and creates real problems for people who have not done anything wrong.

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The IRS and Justice Department Could Become Problems for Obama →

The news this week about the Department of Justice looking at the phone logs of journalists covering the White House, and of the IRS scrutinizing the tax returns of various right-wing groups, is bad for the Obama administration. They are also much more likely to stick than the Benghazi story. The Justice Department and IRS stories make the administration look almost like a branch of the Obama campaign, putting their ample resources behind efforts to harass, or at least gather information, about the Obama administration. In a comparative sense, these are not as serious as Watergate, domestic surveillance during the Nixon administration, or Iran-Contra, but they have the potential to be solid b-level scandals, too small to bring down a president, but big enough to accelerate that second term president's lame duck status.

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Open Carry Marches and Stories of Tyranny →

The language of tyranny, freedom, oppression and the like which one hears so much on the far right today demonstrates this. Participants in this open carry march are being prodded into action by calls to fight against creeping, or perhaps more immediate, threats of tyranny in the U.S. Fighting against tyranny in the U.S. is a good and noble cause, but significantly less so when, like today, there is no actual threat of tyranny coming to the U.S. By building disagreements over policy into a story of freedom versus tyranny, manipulators like Kokesh make their supporters feel more important, as if they are motivated by a noble cause not just political and economic frustration.

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The Rose Revolution Through a Funhouse Mirror

In the 1990s, Western supported and funded democracy assistance programs, including support for civil society and rule of law, technical assistance to political parties and legislatures, and election monitoring to ensure free, fair and democratic elections, played an important role in the expansion of democracy throughout much the former Communist block, Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Over recent decades these tools have been integrated into the foreign policy apparatus of the West, but a funny thing happened on the way to the agora: The environment changed and the programs did not. - See more at: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1421#sthash.3dkmdOrk.dpuf

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Background Checks Should Not Be the End of the Gun Discussion →

President Obama's time in the White House is now more than half over. Presidential aspirants from both major parties are beginning to think more seriously about the 2016 campaign. Soon speculation about what Obama will do after leaving the White House will commence. Given his temperament, intellect and background, academia might be a good fit for Obama when he is no longer president. It is not hard to imagine Obama holding a position, and occasionally teaching at a prominent law school. For young law students, taking a course from Obama would be an extraordinary opportunity. However, if he offers a course on negotiating, students might be wiser to take that particular course from another instructor.

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Mike Huckabee's Reductio ad Hitlerum →

Former Arkansas governor, and formerly relevant national political figure, Mike Huckabee is guilty of the latest right wing reductio ad Hitlerumfallacy. The Tea Party and right wing penchant for comparing President Obama to Hitler and Stalin is evidence not of any totalitarian tendencies on the part of Obama. Instead it is evidence that right wing contempt for science is now rivaled by contempt for learning anything about history.

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